Championing the Call Center Industry (last of two parts) By Abigail K. Yap Philippine Star - Networks June 27, 2003 In our last column (June 6), I featured an abbreviated version of a Call Center Industry study written by Robert O'Malley, COO of Asian Call Centres, Inc. This article concludes with the critical factors to success in the business. Critical to Call Centre Business: ENGLISH: The overall positions haven't changed much. The Philippines remains firmly at Number One but has moved even further ahead of India. Malaysia has failed to live up to its early promise and is now attempting to reposition itself as a Pan-Asian centre. Sri Lanka moves up to third position bolstered by The Tamil Tigers ceasefire. China has moved up considerably after a year when they joined the WTO and won The Olympics but China is still wholly unsuitable for English-speaking call centre work. The Philippines has moved even further ahead of India even though India remains at Number Two for this section. There has been a lot of criticism about strong accents in India and how the agents in some Indian vendors have been unable to have a complex conversation in English with Americans or British people. Because of the dominance of English in the Philippines, the agents there think in English and have a neutral accent. As the market in both of these countries is set for triple digit growth over coming years, it will become more clear as to whether this puts a strain on the number of "perfect English" agents in both countries. However, it seems clear that The Philippines will be able to move up the value chain far easier. QUALITY OF AVAILABLE AGENTS: Across Asia, the perception of the call centre agent's position varies from country to country. In wealthy countries such as Japan, South Korea or Malaysia, the range of other career opportunities severely reduced the quality of people willing to work in a call centre environment. The pool of good quality people willing and able to work in offshore call centres can be found in the middle pack and it's no surprise that these countries are at the top of the overall rankings. Countries such as Sri Lanka, India, and the Philippines have a rich source of good quality people able to work in call-centres. The difficulty posed by India is that they are spread out over a wide range of cities whereas Manila and to a lesser extent Colombo have what seems like a limitless number of quality call centre agents available. In contrast to other wealthy countries, Singapore and Hong Kong both rate quite highly. These two countries have both invested quite heavily in their education systems and in normal circumstances, these educated pool would be working in the export-led industries that have shaped their economies. However, a downturn in The United States economy has raised unemployment particularly in Hong Kong. In Singapore, the large number of immigrant workers from The Philippines and Indonesia increases the wealth of talent. COSTS: There can be no doubt that the main driver for moving call-centre work to offshore locations is because of the desire to drive down costs. Unfortunately, the countries with very low cost bases in Indio-China are unsuitable in other criteria for call centre activity. Although China is generally cheaper for labour than many of the countries higher in the rankings, the cost of employing people-orientated people who are fluent in English is actually higher reflecting their limited availability. Other factors which have influenced this include the cost of real estate, telecommunications etc. TELCO: It's no surprise that the best telecommunications networks are for the richest countries. For the countries seriously involved in major offshore call-centre work, there is a different picture. The two largest markets, India and the Philippines have made major improvements in order to meet the growing demand. However, the Indian telecommunications industry still requires major improvements to be able to achieve consistent quality. It should also be noted that these results only apply to the major cities. In the Philippines, only Metro Manila has sufficient infrastructure. Even cities such as Cebu lack the required infrastructure. It should be noted that telecommunications is considered a relatively insignificant issue in terms of location selection. As long as the infrastructure meets a certain level, companies are far more interested in looking at other factors such as the quality of people, their English and the associated costs of doing business there. STABILITY: Much of stability is about perception and this year saw a major issue impact the offshore industry. The crisis in Kashmir, which led to 1 million troops on the border with Pakistan and subsequent travel warnings from The US and UK, shook the offshore industry. In reality, it was only had a short-term impact and companies simply shifted work they were going to place in India to The Philippines. There have been absolutely no reports of any business being impacted because of terrorism. Some countries such as Sri Lanka, The Philippines and China are now seen as more stable than a year ago but countries such as Pakistan, India, Malaysia and Indonesia are considered high-risk areas. However, it should be noted that many of the most stable countries are at the bottom of the overall standings. SUPPORT SERVICES: Successful call centre locations are based on a good network of support services covering all areas of call centre set up and management. These services tend to follow the money that is why the advanced economies are at the top of the list. It's no surprise that the quality of the support services in both India and The Philippines has risen dramatically. There are now a lot of companies trying to fill the void. The lack of quality support services in other countries could well become a barrier to entry for many potential vendors of call centre services. The only other country to improve its ranking is Singapore which may be in part due to the Call Centre Council of Singapore (CCCS) which has been looking to establish standards across the industry. MANAGEMENT: The quality of middle management has come in for some major criticism. In reality, this only really applies to India where the industry is now unable to find suitable middle management to staff its centres. As the market grows, the problem seems to become more acute. One advantage The Philippines has is that it has a higher number of ex-pats working in its centres due to the fact that The Philippines has a lifestyle friendlier towards Westerners. The quality of management available in advanced countries is very high particularly in Japan. Abigail K. Yap is the CEO of Active Business Solutions, Inc. (/a/b/s/), the parent company of Asian Call Centres, Inc. and a member of Yapster e-Conglomerate, Inc. You may contact her at info@activebusiness.com. - - - - - Related Article: Part 1 Championing the Call Center Industry (1st of two parts)